Chapter 12

Perfection Tools

In This Chapter

arrow Understanding the power of standardized work

arrow Creating a visual environment

arrow Identifying defects and variation

In a Lean environment, you compare everything to a standard and then work to improve it. You don’t change anything indiscriminately or “just do it” to improve performance. You use information, analysis, and visual tools to help you deliberately identify where waste and defects are cropping up.

Along with the customer and value-stream tools in Chapter 10, the flow and pull tools described in Chapter 11, and the management tools in Chapter 13, the perfection tools in this chapter make up the overall Lean toolbox. You need all of these tools to support Lean practices.

In this chapter, you discover first how to create standardized work — the foundation upon which activities and processes are built and the basis upon which improvements are made. Then, you organize kaizen events for continuous improvement. And finally, by using visual-management tools, you understand how to create a world where it’s possible to “manage by eye.” This includes the everyday statistical tools that help monitor and analyze the performance of the system. This ...

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